call me when your heart is gone
by hello heartbreak
Summary: Theirs is not a love story. — SouMaka


**Disclaimer: **ソウルイーター © Okubo Atsushi

* * *

The night they kill Crona, she sits in the bathtub and scrubs her arms till they bleed. She knows Crona's blood must have been black – but somehow she remembers it as a vivid crimson, seeping through gaping skin and shattered bone. Red like her own.

Two hours later, he breaks the bathroom lock and lifts her from the pink water soundlessly. Her fingers and toes are like prunes. She tells him this as he applies antiseptic with cotton wool and bandages her wounds with practised ease. The sting brings tears to her eyes, but she does not flinch.

It may be because of their close physical proximity, or her sudden desire to hurt someone (herself), or something else altogether; she finds herself kissing him for the second time, all teeth and feral eyes. (The first had been in the library, accidental and chaste – a mere brushing of the lips.)

"Stop it," he says quietly, but her grip is desperately strong.

"Stop it, Maka," he says again, with slightly more conviction, because she is pushing him down onto their couch and straddling his lower body and he knows that he will do anything for her.

Her fingers are cold against his erection and she too, knows that he will do anything for her. "Not here," he bites out finally, and her laughter sounds like death.

They fuck in his bedroom because it is the nearest to the living room, inexperienced limbs tangling with each other and the sheets. She lets out a muffled gasp at the sudden sharp surge as he pushes into her, canines drawing blood from her pale shoulders – he doesn't pause to ask if she's all right.

She turns her back against him and cries herself to sleep afterward – it just makes him feel like killing himself.

* * *

They become something like strangers, all polite small talk and blank faces. It is all very timely, with graduation and university and the future.

He follows in his brother's footsteps and pursues a musical career; she does her best not to become her father. (They both stop trying to save the world.)

The closest they ever get to each other is on the news, when the academic section blends into the music reviews. Her research papers are almost always lauded for their objectivity and careful insights; she accepts the occasional interview but never answers questions about her previous experience as a meister.

His albums tend to receive mixed critique from extreme ends, with comments ranging from "an utter and horrifying mess, filled with pretentious jarring chords trying to pass off as contemporary" and "insanity at its very best; not for the light-hearted". He has become somewhat of a cult favourite, appealing to those who prefer music that cannot be classified under any specific category.

She buys his albums but never listens to them. He doesn't read her papers because he wouldn't understand them, anyway.

* * *

Her mother dies in a plane crash sometime in between. Most of the teachers from Shibusen attend her funeral, and she sits next to her father willingly for the first time in years.

She feels an odd sense of detachment to the situation, just a vague sadness at the back of her heart. The eulogy is delivered by Professor Stein because her father is too distraught and she knows too little about her mother.

Tsubaki, the twins, Ox and the other students from her batch offer their condolences but she has drifted too far apart from them to even hold a proper conversation. Too many weddings missed, too many times the world has been saved without her help.

After the funeral, she discards the lace black dress she bought for the occasion because it is too reminiscent of something long gone.

Her doorbell rings at two in the morning, and she knows who it is despite not wanting to.

"I flew in from Brisbane as quickly as I could." His hair and limbs are longer and he is wearing a suit but nothing else has changed much.

"Tea?" she asks, her tone weary.

They sit in silence for what seems like an hour, and it is not comfortable. He breaks it first, "You're wearing glasses now?"

"We haven't met in… seven years? And that's the first thing you say to me?" She feels angry all of a sudden. Feels the need to blame something on someone.

"It's not like you were making much of an effort, _Professor_," he rolls the last word off his tongue in slight distaste.

"How about you stop being a hipster once and for all, _Maelstrom_," she shoots back, somehow managing to look scathing even in just a night-shirt and bedroom slippers.

The banter escalates into a one-sided physical assault, with her throwing books at him and him ducking until he pins her against the wall and bares his teeth at her. "You and your goddamned heavy books…" he mutters under his breath and kisses her to shut her up.

She cries again when he comes in her, because he is holding her like she is the most fragile object in the entire universe but she is really not. Her hands are stained with blood and she has killed her friends and she cannot bring herself to love anyone, even herself.

"Congratulations on your engagement," she whispers to the darkness, the ring on his finger icy against her skin.

He tries to tell her that it's an arranged marriage, he doesn't give a damn about his family anyway – and it takes every shred of willpower she has left to keep her from telling him to stay.

"You don't need me anymore, Soul."

A beat.

"And I don't need you either."

The other side of her bed is cold when she wakes up.

* * *

His wedding is a lavish one, bordering on garish. This is what happens when two families made of money decide to create a union. She is only there because Black Star had threatened to tear down her house if she didn't turn up. _I don't care about what happened between you two, you're still ex-partners!_

The bride has dark hair and a beautiful smile. She is wearing white gloves made of silk, so Maka cannot see if her hands are stained with blood or not. She thinks they are probably not.

Soul does not look at her throughout the entire ceremony, and she knows that it is not even on purpose – he just didn't have the time.

* * *

The newspapers report it as a car accident, the gossip column says it might as well have been a suicide attempt. She decides that the latter is more accurate, because going without sleep for three days and then trying to drive to work based on pure adrenaline is courting death on your own accord.

She lapses into a brief coma and dreams of red demons and witch cats, but she knows she will not die because she does not dream of Kid.

Her father is sobbing and holding her hands when her eyelids flutter open, and she can't bring herself to do anything but to roll her eyes. They are not remotely close to having a normal parent-and-child relationship, but they're getting there.

Kid _does_ appear later on, but during the hospital's visiting hours. He looks at her knowingly and tells her to straighten her fringe because it's not symmetrical. Others stream in and are genuinely concerned and for the first time in a long while she feels like she is not afraid to live.

Soul comes a few days late, because he is too busy finishing compositions and looking after his newborn son at the same time. His face is grim when he sees the scars on her cheek and her arm in a cast.

"You're such an idiot," he flops down onto the chair next to her bed.

"And you smell like… baby," she wrinkles her nose.

"_You_ smell like old people," he offers.

"That's still better than unchanged diapers."

"… why are we always fighting over stupid things?"

"I don't know, maybe it's because _you started it_?" She turns her neck with much effort to continue her line of argument but his hands are digging into her mattress and their faces are dangerously close.

She realises then that he will always have the biggest place in her heart. Friend, partner, lover, stranger. It seldom matters, because he is all and none of them at the same time. And that is enough.

"Are you happy?" she whispers.

_Wife_, _child_, _family_ hang in the air between them.

He pulls back abruptly and she smiles a little.

"You are," she answers for him.

* * *

She receives a text message three days after.

_are u happy?_

It is from an unknown number. Her fingers do not hesitate when she types up a reply.

_I will be._


End file.
